Adamant as Michaelangelo

24 the minnesota review Robert Cooperman Adamant as Michaelangelo When we return from the nursing home, my wife—a doctor's daughter— insists we wash our hands. I wish it were that easy to stop thinking of my grandmother: trembling, beckoning with broken twigs of fingers, whispering that she painted the cheap print of April trees under a shock of blue sky that hangs on a wall of her room. Maybe it triggers a memory of Prospect Park, walking with my grandfather, sitting in the shade of a generous elm, his head in her lap, blond hair curling through her fingers; or maybe it's an antidote to the white she's surrounded by: walls, curtains, hospital gowns; for the awful liver patches— spilled oils that will never wash away from her wrists. She insists she painted it, the one treasure allowed from her apartment; my mother shrugs impatience, my wife praises her talent, I nod, dreading the feats I'll someday claim, adamant as Michaelangelo, giddy as Mozart. ...